Reforms in the public health infrastructure such as those called for in recent Institute of Medicine reports require stakeholder engagement on different levels than traditional grass-roots community work. The Turning Point Initiative, funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, involves 21 state-wide partnerships established for systems change and focused in specific areas of public health […]
Abstract Topics: Community Partnerships
Evaluating community partnerships and coalitions with practitioners in mind.
Evaluation plays a key role in developing and sustaining community partnerships and coalitions. We recommend focusing on three levels of coalition evaluation that measure (a) processes that sustain and renew coalition infrastructure and function; (b) programs intended to meet target activities, or those that work directly toward the partnership’s goals; and (c) changes in health […]
Managing complex systems: performance management in public health.
The complexity of mobilizing and managing systems-wide public health responses has prompted Turning Point’s Performance Management National Excellence Collaborative, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, to develop a conceptual framework for performance management in public health. The framework has four integrated parts: (1) performance standards, (2) performance measures, (3) reporting of progress, and (4) […]
The costs and benefits to participants in community partnerships: a paradox?
This article examines the degree of stakeholder participation in health and social partnership schemes in relation to their perceptions of benefits, costs, satisfaction, commitment, and ownership. The findings suggest that (a) involvement, commitment, and sense of ownership were invariably associated with high benefits and mostly with low costs; (b) benefits, commitment, and ownership might be […]
Local newspapers, community partnerships, and health improvement projects: their roles in a comprehensive community initiative.
To understand local media’s role in a community health initiative, a content analysis of 1,709 paragraphs from 173 news articles and editorials was undertaken. The articles were from three local newspapers, one in each of three communities. Analyses focused on article content combined with reflective personal interviews with local campaign directors. Results suggest that local […]
Early intervention screening for family caregivers of older relatives in primary care practices: establishing a community health service alliance in rural America.
The Maine Primary Partners in Caregiving project provides a prime example of how disparate community health, social service, and higher education institutions can build a successful rural service alliance for the purposes of screening for family members experiencing stress during the provision of care to impaired older relatives. Community primary care practices are featured as […]
Public health infrastructure system change: outcomes from the turning point initiative.
The Robert Wood Johnson and W.K. Kellogg Foundations created the Turning Point initiative to transform and strengthen the public health infrastructure. This study examined 135 public health system changes for their links to multiple sector collaborative engagement, essential public health services, health outcomes, and infrastructure building strategies. An on-line documentation system developed by the University […]
Broadening participation in community problem solving: a multidisciplinary model to support collaborative practice and research. [Review]
Over the last 40 years, thousands of communities-in the United States and internationally-have been working to broaden the involvement of people and organizations in addressing community-level problems related to health and other areas. Yet, in spite of this experience, many communities are having substantial difficulty achieving their collaborative objective, and many funders of community partnerships […]
MDON: a network of community partnerships.
This model for strengthening diabetes care in communities teams the public health system with the professional and lay community to address prevention, early detection, and treatment of diabetes. This article describes how the Michigan Diabetes Outreach Network (MDON) develops local, regional, and statewide partnerships to increase professional and public knowledge and to improve care delivery […]
Fighting childhood obesity with university-community partnerships.
This article describes how two Robert Wood Johnson (RWJ) Executive Nurse Fellows used their leadership competencies to inspire and lead change within the community to fight the growing problem of childhood obesity. A model of University-Community partnership is proposed which incorporated the core leadership competencies of the RWJ program—interpersonal and communication effectiveness; risk-taking and creativity; self-knowledge; skills […]